ATI Capture/tuner cards

[lordsmurf]

Northwood does not overheat like Prescott does.

[123fish123]

Northwood does not overheat like Prescott does.

Gotcha. I thought overheating would just be for those overclockers. Didn't realize they overheated in general. How the heck can they release processors with an issue like that?

[DereX888]

Well, they don't 'overheat' themselves, they just run very hot (compared to Northwood or other) when running fully loaded.
AFAIR i.e. the first MMX intel' cpus were running very hot as well, maybe even hotter than this. Blame on change of technologies combined with rush to be the 'first' on the market...

[INFRATOM]

I doubt if you can find Northwood anymore, it is better than Prescott because is works cooler if you overclock, it will run cooler. For overclocking 2.8 GHZ is the best also price wise if but if you can get the 3.2 GHZ for the same price or else don't bother to overclock this was when 3ghz was very expensive. On ATI subject, I have AIW9700 pro it works fine but I upgraded the driver to most recent ones and now I have lots of trouble and lost many options too. I have to find older drivers and reload. Always compare the economics in these days overclocking a pentium D is the trend. If spending $1000 + go for the core2 duo don't spend on obsolete technology.

[jagabo]

NewEgg has 2.8 GHz Northwoods:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116215

I'd go for a socket 775 motherboard (at least that has some future upgrade potential) and a C2D E6300 (a low end Cedar Mills P4 costs as much as the E6300).

[123fish123]

When all is said and done I think I am going to wait until closer to the holidays and go with the Core Duo. The E6300 is down to $179 now and by then will be even cheaper and for that price, with a nice MB, it's worth it to me to go with the newer technology and get the PCIe versus hunting for the P4 stuff which is tougher and tougher to find.

[jagabo]

I think you know this but just in case you're not aware: it's Core 2 Duo, not Core Duo. I mention this because there is a Core Duo line -- single core mobile CPUs (part of the Centrino package).

[123fish123]

I do but thanks! I'll take ANY and all comments though because the way they come out with these chips every stinking day it's a lot to learn and track!

[DereX888]

I doubt if you can find Northwood anymore, it is better than Prescott because is works cooler if you overclock, it will run cooler. For overclocking 2.8 GHZ is the best also price wise if but if you can get the 3.2 GHZ for the same price or else don't bother to overclock this was when 3ghz was very expensive. On ATI subject, I have AIW9700 pro it works fine but I upgraded the driver to most recent ones and now I have lots of trouble and lost many options too. I have to find older drivers and reload. Always compare the economics in these days overclocking a pentium D is the trend. If spending $1000 + go for the core2 duo don't spend on obsolete technology.

exactly.
But $100 to spend on upgrading 'obsolete tech' (and having a decent working PVR PC) versus $1000 for 'new tech' (and having basically same decent PVR PC) is exactly 10 times less money spent on same thing... if he is not going to play any newest games on it, or do any pro encoding, why does he need pci-e or a dual core cpu?
With all this talk here in past week he could have already bought all the 'upgrade' parts needed for his existing 'obsolete tech' PC and enjoying working PVR PC already, instead of waiting until Christmas in hope of price drop for 'new tech'... and don't forget: half year later after he buy this 'new tech' it will become the same 'obsolete tech' as well lol

[123fish123]

Actually...the problem now becomes the old tech that is worth getting (northwood) is tougher to find. I can easily get barbones sets back to Cedar Mill/Prescott. But am worried based on what people have said about prescott and heat issues. I'd consider cedar mill but don't know enough to know if they have issues. Northwood seems like it's be 100% buy separate components and put together which I don't know that I am up for. So I don't mind old but worry about not knowing much about cedar mill cpus.

Other option is AMD athlon 64 3800+ or so but have read bad things about nvidea chipsets and lots of issues with them.

[jagabo]

But am worried based on what people have said about prescott and heat issues.

Prescott runs hotter than Northwood at the same speed, but since you're not looking at the highest speed parts you won't have any problems with heat.

I'd consider cedar mill but don't know enough to know if they have issues.

I haven't heard much about Cedar Mills either but I believe the power consumption is lower than Northwood. It's basically just a die shrink of Prescott with more L2 cache.

Other option is AMD athlon 64 3800+ or so but have read bad things about nvidea chipsets and lots of issues with them.

Nothing wrong with NForce4 chipsets for A64 X2.

[123fish123]

Nothing wrong with NForce4 chipsets for A64 X2.

Here is one of the things I read

NVIDIA's nForce4 chipset suffers from several unresolved issues. First and foremost, the ActiveArmor hardware firewall is nearly non-functional, with many unsolved bugs and potentially serious instability. Installing ActiveArmor can cause BSODs for users of certain software, especially peer-to-peer file sharing applications. Some programs, such as μTorrent, go so far as to have warning messages about using NVIDIA's firewall in combination with their software. ActiveArmor also has a high probability of causing corruption of file downloads. NVIDIA has been unable to solve these issues and points to hardware bugs within the chipset itself; problems which they are unable to work around. To resolve the corruption and instability problems, NVIDIA has disabled the chipset's much-touted TCP Offload Engine in later drivers.[9] This effectively eliminates the firewall's performance advantage over other software-based solutions. Many users also continue to claim that ActiveArmor is simply non-functional as a firewall. Users refer to continued unpredictable stability issues. Communication between NVIDIA and enthusiasts continues to slowly address the problems.[10] However, the ActiveArmor feature has been discontinued in future NVIDIA chipsets.

The nForce4 chipset has also been blamed for issues with PCI cards, related to NVIDIA's implementation of the PCI bus. RME Audio, a maker of professional audio equipment, has stated that the latency of the PCI bus is unreliable and that the chipset's PCI Express interface can "hog" system data transfer resources when intense video card usage is occurring. This has the effect of causing audible pops and clicks with PCI sound cards.[11] Gamers have noticed this effect, especially with Creative's Sound Blaster X-Fi and Sound Blaster Audigy 2 sound cards. Compatibility issues between these sound cards and nForce4 motherboards have been ongoing, even following driver updates.[12] Latency issues are more readily apparent with sound cards than other addon cards because of the direct user feedback the audio problems bring forward.

[lordsmurf]

I'm no fan of AMD or AMD board creators. I would leave that whole mess alone and stick to Intel when dealing with video.

[sacajaweeda]

It seems everyone has their fanboys. Intel, AMD, Ford, Chevy, +R, -R, JVC, Pioneer, ATI, etc, etc.

[DereX888]

...and Coke

[lordsmurf]

A "fanboy" is somebody that likes something "just because" or has silly reasonings -- usually ones that lack in logic or are based solely on "whiz bang" type features.

So I know you're not referring to my comment.

For starters, ATI and AMD don't always get along (and this is an ATI specific thread). And then Intel has advantages when dealing with video (SSE, SSE2, more stable motherboards). AMD is not an ideal video machine. Good computer, fine for gaming, fine for grandma to check here e-mail. But it's not a rock-solid setup for video, at least nothing beyond one-click-wonder work. A computer is a tool. Always buy the tool you need.

[jagabo]

For starters, ATI and AMD don't always get along (and this is an ATI specific thread).

Since AMD recently bought ATI you can be sure this type of problem will get worked out, at least for newer products.

And then Intel has advantages when dealing with video (SSE, SSE2,

All current AMD processors have SSE, SSE2, and SSE3. Intel's Core 2 Duo has SSE4 exclusively for the time being.

more stable motherboards).

All motherboards have their issues. Overall I agree that Intel has better motherboards. In the past AMD has competed mostly on price. That means a lot of motherboard manufacturers created budget motherboards with marginal design and manufacturing. But that doesn't mean there aren't decent motherboards for AMD systems.

[DereX888]

For starters, ATI and AMD don't always get along (and this is an ATI specific thread).

Since AMD recently bought ATI you can be sure this type of problem will get worked out, at least for newer products.

"will get worked out" refers to future actions, not the current status.
We are talking about what is now, and as of now there are plenty of issues with ATI on AMD.

And then Intel has advantages when dealing with video (SSE, SSE2,

All current AMD processors have SSE, SSE2, and SSE3. Intel's Core 2 Duo has SSE4 exclusively for the time being.

Again, "for time being" implies somewhat future actions.
Are you a psychic or something? What if Intel will not licence SSE4 to AMD for ages, as it happened before with MMX?
As of now AMD doesn't have what Intel has.

more stable motherboards).

Overall I agree that Intel has better motherboards.

So whats there to discuss